Health Minister Anna Soubry says the Government's flagship "friends and
family test", which has been criticised for being "misleading"
is already proving itself to be "a great idea".

The Government's "Friends and Family Test" test designed to shine the spotlight on poor care for hospital patients has been criticised as "misleading" by the Patients Association.

The test, which simply asks patients whether or not they would recommend the hospital where they were treated to their loved ones, will "not address fundamental failures" in the health service, the Patients Association said.

Indeed nine in every 10 patients who attended the hospital with the "worst" A&E department in the country would recommend that their friends and family should seek treatment at the hospital.

More than 400,000 NHS hospital in-patients or A&E attendees completed the test during April, May and June.

Each hospital ward is given a score based on patient satisfaction levels – if every single patient says they would be "extremely likely" to recommend the service the ward would receive a score of 100, if every single patient said they would be "neither unlikely nor likely", "unlikely" or "extremely unlikely" to recommend the service, the trust receives a score of minus 100.

Officials create the score for each hospital by subtracting the proportion of negative responses from the positive ones.

But if a patient says they would be "likely" to recommend a service, the response is classed as "neutral". Each hospital is then labelled as average, or among the worst or best.

Health Minister Anna Soubry defended the test. She said: "This is about finding out what's happening at the sharp end of the NHS, what people's real experiences are on a particular ward in a particular hospital, in a particular A&E. It gives real, direct feedback."